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How To Stop Fear Of Failure Putting Your Business And Social Ambitions On Hold

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In the world of business, fear is practically a currency. Most of us would pay a high price to avoid having to confront our darkest and most deeply held fears, but our competitors rarely give us the option to do so.

Often, our subconscious will expend considerable energy trying to divert us from a collision course with our perceived weaknesses, and we end up either sticking our heads in the sand or running away from a problem. No business person who behaves in this way will stay the course for long. But what if there was another way?

Hayley Summers is a life coach who believes that we can be taught how to overcome even our most deeply held fears and beliefs, by getting to know them better. During the course of several in-depth conversations with Hayley over the past few weeks, having bumped into her a networking event, I have been deeply impressed by her philosophy of identifying and ejecting unhelpful beliefs from our lives and replacing them with new, more up to date opinions and attitudes, which can significantly improve both our working and social lives.

Hayley’s belief is that as we grow as people, and our opinions and lifestyles change, our fears become outdated, no longer a part of who we are, and yet still we let them dictate to us.

 

Hayley Summers, Life Coach. (Credit: Hayley Summers)

“Fear of failure is a very common worry, but we're scared of many other things too, including success, not being good enough, not being loved, being disliked and being thought of as stupid”, she says.

All of these factors hold us back, either consciously or sub consciously, but Hayley’s point is that we don’t have to live with them forever. A fear of failure often stems from our belief that failure is a sign of weakness, or of being unworthy of what we have. We have let others down, we tell ourselves, because we have too many faults. The trick is to step outside of these beliefs and try to view things from a different perspective.

Many of our beliefs are formed during our younger years, and we carry them with us on our life’s journey, but as our lives change so should our beliefs. We must re-evaluate what we have learned; for example, when we were young, what did our parents tell us about money? Did we believe it was scarce or abundant? Were relationships perceived to be a chore or a pleasure? What were our parents and grandparents relationships like? How did we feel when we made a mistake? What were our teachers like?

As we try to answer these questions we discover that many of the things we decided in our younger years are no longer true. Perhaps we are now more financially secure, or we take money less seriously than we did before. Our habits may have changed, and we have now formed many relationships outside of our families which provide us with new criteria of judgement. Over to Hayley: “As a coach I encourage my clients to take a good hard look at their beliefs, throw out any that they no longer want and create new, empowering beliefs to move them forwards.”

In a way it is like a form of surgery. First it is explorative. Identify a belief that is having a negative impact on your life, and try to discover where it came from. Next , try to understand why you still cling to that belief. Perhaps you perceive it as a form of protection. How does it make you feel? What purpose might it have? Do you have any other beliefs that might be reinforcing it?

The next stage is to ask yourself: could I replace this negative, over protective sentiment with an alternative belief, one that is more empowering, for instance. Imagine what your life might be like without this particular belief; what might its absence enable you to do that you have always wanted to do?

Questioning our beliefs allows us to explore realities we would never have thought possible. Realising what is possible if you change your beliefs can be a powerful motivator to move forwards.

Finally, it is time to take action. “Sometimes the fear is so crippling that we simply can't face it, but, when acting against it feels just uncomfortable, rather than life threatening, we are able to overcome it briefly, and take some decisive action”, Hayley explains. “We begin to realise that we have the potential to be most courageous when we are at our most fearful.”

It is a chicken and egg problem. You cannot talk yourself out of your fear completely without taking action, but equally you cannot take action until you have clearly processed your fear and made it seem less scary. Hayley describes this phenomena as the “crippling fear threshold”, she suggests we process our fear, either with the help of a coach or through meditation, journaling or other reflective activities, until it drops below the “crippling fear threshold”. Once it is no longer “crippling” we should take action. This takes strength and courage but is something we are all capable of once our fear is no longer paralysing us.

“In every session we make progress. Some clients need just one cycle of this, in order to move forward with one aspect, but often we repeat this cycle several times over, either building up smaller actions into larger ones or overcoming new fears as they come to the surface.”

Another aspect of fear which Hayley deals with she labels “evidence based fear”. A lack of time to research a marketing campaign may result in the fear that it will not be successful, or a relationship where two parties are not communicating may lead you to think it is coming to an end. These kind of concerns can be beneficial, because there is reasonable evidence to suggest they may be genuine. They should not be panic inducing however, if they are based around a new and factual, rather than an outdated belief system.

“It is important to separate the rationale behind our fears into those that can serve us and those that can hinder us. Are you scared of launching that marketing campaign because you haven’t done enough research or because you’re scared you’re not good enough?”

I have argued before that as much as business is about financial gain, it is also about challenging oneself, competing effectively, and being social. It is entirely right that we prepare ourselves as best we can to make every opportunity count. If anything, it is our responsibility to make sure that we do. Life coaching plays an increasingly important role in helping us to understand how to conduct ourselves in ways that are most beneficial not only to ourselves but to the community at large.

In the UK, for example, most high earners will, at some stage, have used coaching and analysis to make sure they are looking after themselves properly, and in order to perform to their maximum abilities. So next time you are feeling fearful, take Hayley's advice: picture yourself on top of the situation, ask yourself how you did it, and what beliefs gave you the will to win.

Hayley’s 5 tips for staying on top of your fears

  1. If you are avoiding or procrastinating ask yourself why. There could be a fear driving it;
  2. Fears can look much worse when they are hidden or avoided; things which look menacing in the darkness are often far less intimidating when exposed to the light of day. Get your fears out in the open, be honest about them, tell someone you trust, write about them, explain them;
  3. Start practising new beliefs by writing them down, or talking to yourself in the mirror. Progress to sharing your belief with others or going a whole morning in the mindset of your new belief;
  4. Action is kryptonite to fear, so act anyway; keep your mind and body active at all times;
  5. Overcoming a fear isn’t a finite process, relapsing is normal. This is most likely to happen on a bad day or when you are feeling vulnerable. If you’ve just ended a relationship, lost your job or delivered a bad pitch, be ready for your fears to re-surface.